Marrying Stone (38 page)

"Did I ever tell you about my wife?" Onery asked. Somewhat surprised at the change of subject, Roe permitted the old man to continue his rumination.

"You've mentioned her a time or two, and I think I've heard about her from other folks on the mountain."

"Heard tales about us, did ye?" Onery chuckled ruefully. "We was a scandal indeed on this mountain. Having a child without a wedding. Folks at the church was spitting their eye teeth and her own folks done throwed
her out of the house." He shook his head disdainfully at the memory. "I was a
rambling fiddle player, bone idle most of the time and with a wild streak as
long as the White River rapids. Ah, but she was sweet and soft and passionate."
The old man sighed in pleasure at the memory. "I swear I think she let me lay
with her the first time just 'cause she knew how bad I wanted to. It was
something different, son. She was something different. Something that I ain't never had the like of before nor since."

He turned to look at Roe again, studying him. "I knew it was pure sugar bread, but I didn't pay no mind. When it came time for me to move on, she sent me on my way. I didn't want to go. At least that's what I said. I argued with her from daylight 'til dark about it for a week or more. I knew she was no cull list squirmy. But, son, truth to tell, I didn't really want to marry her."

Onery sighed heavily and gazed again at the mountains in the distance. "I had had a good life a-ramblin' around and I was loath to give it up. I thought it would be good again. It'd be having a fancy choke rag around my neck, batch of bald face whiskey, and a pretty new gal in ever' town."

Onery hesitated for a long moment. "But it weren't." He peered closely at Roe. "How is it, oncest you've seen love, son, oncest you've felt it and tasted it, ain't no use trying to go back to the nigglin' life. It ain't there no more fer ye."

Roe's brow furrowed, trying to understand.

"And I tried, son. Lord knows I put a lot of miles between me and this mountain. I drank hard, played hard, run hard. But what I couldn't outrun was how much I needed that woman. And what I couldn't stand was the fact that she didn't seem to need me a'tal!"

Roe agreed. "I guess she
was
like Meggie."

"She was. That she was. But this talk she gave me about not needing me, it was a lie, you know."

"A lie?"

Onery nodded. "She said she didn't need me and she said she didn't want me. She said she could raise our boy on her own or find another man to take him on. But she was fooling herself as much about that as I was about wanting my ramblin' ways back."

Onery stared once more at the distant mountain, lost in thought. "I guess it's a bit like our Jesse."

"Like Jesse?"

"Yes. Ye see there ain't nothing really
wrong
with the boy's mind. He can think and figure and remember just like all the rest of us. But it's as if his head is kindy sluggishlike. It don't learn quick and it don't always recall what it sorted out the day before. That's the way she and I were. We couldn't see that we was in love with each other and that if we didn't live together, well, then there weren't much sense in living at all."

"But you did convince her to marry you."

"I did indeed." The old man chuckled and shook his head. "I just said to her, 'Woman, I'm here to stay and you can love me or loathe me but I ain't never leaving no more.'"

Roe glanced bade at the door to the cabin behind him and then turned to contemplate the wooded path beyond the homestead. "I'm happy for you, Onery. But when she sent you away, she left the door open. She didn't plan to announce your death. I can never return here. I'll never see this place again."

Onery nodded solemnly. "Yep, that's the way things look." He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he just kept staring at the mountain in the distance.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF

J. MONROE FARLEY

September 23, 1902

Cambridge, Massachusetts

This p.m. I presented the final segment of my first drafting of the results of the Ozarks music study to the fellowship committee. Although I am confident that my evidence was sufficient, there were members of the committee who failed to believe that the presence of previously undiscovered Spenserian and Elizabethan music among native Ozark hill people was anything but curious coincidence. I argued very well, I believe, but the disfavor I faced was overwhelming.

Somehow the truths presented were in conflict with the peculiar bias of the majority of committee members. It appears to me that they generally refuse to believe that the unlettered, isolated people of the Ozark Mountains could have managed to preserve a heritage that the academic circles of this country and the British Isles have irrevocably lost.

While I played cylinder after cylinder of near ancient song, the gentlemen continued to ask me to tell once more the stories of the bear grease on the bread, the privy I had to build, or the young women who never wore shoes.

My work was taken seriously on no point and it was even suggested by one pompous theorist that I had frittered away the fellowship funds on no account. Ultimately, I was strongly encouraged to desist in this vein of inquiry. I announced that I was preparing a paper for the Journal of Theoretic Musicology and I was sternly warned that my finding would be considered frivolous and could possibly hurt the reputation of my work and of the fellowship committee. It was strongly suggested that after a reasonable period of time to take care of personal business and to clear my notes, the fellowship committee would hear a request for further expeditions in the remote areas of Scotland or Ireland to get my pursuit into a circumspect direction. I suppose that is what I will do. I am confident that I am not wrong, however I may be, unfortunately, the only one
.

I went to the seaside near Boston last week. I watched an old man and his grandson fishing from the pier. It reminded me that I had never fished from the ocean. As I gazed off across the water I thought about Jesse and Onery and worried for them. The days must be getting shorter and colder there now. I wonder if Pigg Broody was willing to loan Jesse a dog for hunting.

Of Meggie, I try not to think at all.

THE COLD BLUSTERY wind of early October sneaked beneath the cabin door and chilled the room. Meggie wrapped a worn shawl around her shoulders, snuggling beneath it. She had already thrown another log onto the fire but it was a sog, turning black and smoldering, and wouldn't burn properly.

The first snowfall of the year had blown in overnight. It was way early and looked as if it wouldn't stick, but it blanketed the homestead clearing, making it appear clean and bright and new. It only made Meggie feel colder and she didn't need snow or ice to feel cold these days. Cold had become a way of life for her.

"Whew-eee!" Onery called as he came barging through the door and across the threshold, stamping the snow that lingered on his boots onto the dirt floor. "It's sure enough biscuit weather out there this morning."

Meggie made a murmur of agreement as her father took off his damp wool coat and hung it on a peg near the door. His color was good beneath the gray of his beard and he seemed strong and young once more.

On the day that Roe Farley had left Marrying Stone, her father had risen from his chair on the porch and declared himself completely well. He'd still been as weak as a newborn colt at the time, but he had pushed himself from one task to another until he had his strength back and was able to do most of the work he'd been accustomed to.

"I've been half-work brickie all my life," he told Meggie. "I malingered as long as I dared. Truth to tell, I thought it might make your feller stay."

"He couldn't stay," Meggie answered.

It was the only conversation that the two of them had shared concerning J. Monroe Farley, but not a day went by when his name wasn't mentioned in the cabin.

"Wait 'til Roe gets back. Wish Roe could see this possum I kilt," and "If Roe were here I could get this done in half the time" were among the near constant utterances from Jesse's mouth.

Meggie knew that he missed his friend and was comforted by talk of him. But its frequency was a nagging heartbreak for her.

If other people wondered about the growing length of Farley's absence, Jesse did not. Roe had said that he would return and for Jesse that was enough.

For Meggie the delay had been a wrenching battle with procrastination. Going ahead with her plan always seemed like something that she should do tomorrow. The lies were to be monumental, the effects permanent, and the pain unbearable. Jesse had become a part of that reason. Meggie thought her plot had been designed so that everyone could get what they wanted. Roe could have his work in the Bay State and some woman more suited to the life he wanted. Her father would be spared the shame of his daughter's sinful communion. And the people of Marrying Stone could have a logical resolution to what had quickly become a very sticky problem.

But Jesse would not be getting what he wanted. And of course, neither would she.

"Something smells real good this morning, Meggie-gal," her father said. "What you got cookin' in that pot?"

"Conohany," she answered, referring to the mixture of hominy, wild herbs, meat, and nuts that was said to be an old Cherokee recipe.

"Mmmmmm. Jesse'll be glad to hear that."

"Where is Jesse?" she asked.

"I got him fixin' the dog-leg fence next to the pigsty. Why?"

Meggie took a deep, soul-searching breath before turning to her father. "I have news from afar," she lied. "My husband was killed on his journey to the Bay State."

Her father's brow furrowed and he cursed under his breath.

"Today! Land sakes, Meggie, it's snowing out there. How could you get a missive today?"

"Pa, I have to," she answered. "I just can't wait any longer. I… got it today."

Onery sighed heavily and sat down in a chair. "I was hoping that you'd changed your mind."

Meggie wiped her hands nervously upon her apron. "It has to be this way, Pa. We was never meant."

He snorted in disapproval. "You was 'as meant' as any other young couple getting themselves married up."

"We had different lives. We come from different places."

"Surely ye do. And you got different bodies, too. That's what marriage is about, Meggie-gal, making differences intertwine into something whole and new."

Meggie didn't want to argue. "He didn't love me, Pa," she said.

"I'll believe that when I see coons a-taking up farming," the old man answered. He raked his hair with his hands helplessly. "What do ye think love is, Meggie. Do you think it's heart pounding and breath stealing and verse reciting?" he asked. "Yes, ma'am, there is some of that involved, but mostly love is quiet and caring and friendlylike. It's wanting to tell that person something afore you whisper it to another soul. It's not being alone."

He pointed a finger at her accusingly. "Meggie-gal, you loved that feller the minute you laid eyes upon him. I know you thought he was one of those princes in your storybooks, and I worried that you'd be disappointed when you realized that he was real and no daydream. But you ain't stopped dreaming yet, have ye? You're still thinking your life is one of them fairy tales, only this is one of those that come to a bad end."